Sometimes I think I want to give up my blog. I love the cooking part but I just get so frustrated with taking photos. They just never seem to turn out the way that I would like them to. I have these beautiful visions in my head but what I see is not what I get. I really have no one to blame but myself. I should learn the ins and outs of my camera, I should take a class in photography, I should read more books on food photography, I should buy some proper lighting. Lots of "shoulds" but not enough time or finances to do so at the moment. One day.
Anyway, back to the task at hand. I had lots of bananas quickly ripening in the fruit basket and I wanted something new to try rather than my go-to recipe for banana bread. I went through my trusty "To Try" list hoping to find something. Sure enough there was a great-sounding recipe for Roasted Banana Nut Bread with Browned Butter & Toffee Topping on Karissa's site Baking For Her Soul.
The only changes I made were to omit the nuts and I did not lay the slices of banana on the sides like she did. The roasting of the bananas brings out the sweetness and adds such a wonderful flavor to the bread. The crunchy topping was also good, and I can imagine a few different directions to go in if you did want a different topping - a sprinkle of coconut, a cream cheese and passionfruit frosting, even something with peanut butter would be yummy. And should the bread last long enough to be re-purposed I think it would make an awesome base for a bread pudding.
Roasted Banana Bread with Browned Butter and Toffee Topping
Ingredients
- 3 medium bananas
- ⅔ cup brown sugar, separated
- 4 tablespoons butter, separated
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup low-fat plain yogurt
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ⅓ cup toffee pieces for sprinkling on top, optional
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar for sprinkling on top, optional
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Grease and flour a 9×5 loaf pan.
- Peel and slice the bananas into ½-inch pieces and toss them with 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon butter in a foil-lined baking dish.
- Bake for 40 minutes, stirring once during baking, until the bananas are browned and cooked through.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- Reduce oven heat to 350°F.
- Whisk together flour, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium bowl, and set aside.
- On medium heat, brown 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, swirling the pan several times for about 5 minutes until the butter has started to brown.
- Remove from heat and add 1/3 cup brown sugar and salt.
- Add the bananas to the browned butter and mash into mixture, until just combined.
- Add eggs, vanilla extract, oil, and the yogurt to the butter, sugar and bananas, mix until combined.
- Add the wet mixture into the dry mixture, and mix to incorporate fully, but don’t mix past the point where it’s just combined.
- Pour into prepared pan.
- Sprinkle the toffee bits on top, and then sprinkled the entire top with sugar.
- Bake at 350°F degrees on center rack for about 40-50 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean and top is browned.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool in loaf pan for about 10-15 minutes before removing the loaf.
- Place on a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe adapted from Baking For Her Soul.
